


still waters run deep

by jokeperalta



Category: Bodyguard (TV)
Genre: F/M, Missing Scene, Morning After, Oneshot, People Who Definitely Shouldn't Be Sleeping Together But Are, Psychological Trauma, Resolved Sexual Tension, Sexual Tension, first fic in the fandom i think? should i be proud or concerned for myself?, truly. a raging garbage fire of a ship. and i love it.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-02
Updated: 2018-09-02
Packaged: 2019-07-05 21:22:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15871977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jokeperalta/pseuds/jokeperalta
Summary: Handbag strap over shoulder, despatch box in hand. The weight of it in her hand feels familiar, normal.Business as usual.Except that it isn’t.





	still waters run deep

**Author's Note:**

> what can I say? I’m trash. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ Missing scene set the morning after the night before,as it were. AKA the night after they sleep together (the first time). I basically wanted to see some awkward sexual tension so I wrote it lol
> 
> you should know that I wrote this whilst neglecting my Masters dissertation that is, at time of publishing, due in less than five days. and I'm not above using that to make you pity me into leaving a comment- please tell me what you think!

 

“Ma’am.” There’s a knock on the door. The security stationed on the corridor, Julia rationalises, when it absurdly makes her jump. “Your car is here.”

She’s been ready for almost two hours now, crossed legs on the couch and waiting. Sleep had been a mostly futile endeavour, save for fitful dozing, so she’d gotten up and dressed simply for something to do. Something to focus on rather than picking her nail beds apart trying to get at dried blood that isn’t there. Or the smell of aftershave and sweat on the crisp pillows beside her.

Handbag strap over shoulder, despatch box in hand. The weight of it in her hand feels familiar, normal.

Business as usual.

Except that it isn’t.

Two officers silently follow her downstairs, practically glued to her elbows. Perhaps what she should have expected the day after an assassination attempt and in some ways she’s grateful.

On the other hand, it feels rather like throwing a sandbag on the doorstep when the flood’s already been, gone, and ruined the furniture. Where were they in the hail of bullets, after all? The thought is unfair, perhaps. The blame belongs further up the food chain.

It’s a grey and bitingly cold day. The streets are deserted at this time in the morning, and yet it’s hard not to feel under siege from every shadow out in the open. Knowing there had been at least one person out there less than twenty-four hours before that had been so committed to carrying out her execution he’d shoot an innocent man, risk the lives of countless others, and then kill himself.

Which is why she has PS Budd, she supposes.

Her stomach clenches when she sees him. Her steps do not falter.

Julia ducks her head as she approaches. Meeting his eyes seems like a bad idea when she can still feel the pull in her thighs where his hips had been.

“Good morning.”

“Morning, ma’am.”

He’s the very picture of professionalism. There’s no inflection in his tone, not even a glance in her direction to suggest anything untoward. Why she expected anything less, she isn’t sure.

He opens the car door. It hadn’t occurred or mattered to her before that all the cars that carry Cabinet ministers are the same make and model.

She sees the pristine interior, the backseat footwell – and the recollection of crouching there, terrified, covered in the blood of a man she’d known for as long as she’d been in the Cabinet comes back to her so strongly it makes her nauseous.

It’s overwhelming. It makes her want to _run_.

Julia’s steps skitter back. The backs of her heels hit the kerb and almost topples her backwards before she manages to catch herself on the car door frame.

“It’s okay,” David says to her, low. “You’re okay.”

The calm authority in his voice compels her to look up, whether she wants to or not. His hand is still outstretched at her elbow to stop her falling. He doesn’t touch her, though. Perhaps he’s learnt his lesson now.

He nods at her, once and just slightly. His clear blue eyes entreat her trust, and she hardly has a choice in that. Even if she did, she’d still choose to put her faith in him over almost anyone else. 

The car seals up around her when the door is shut behind her, and it’s suffocating in a way it never was before. It’s frigid outside but she still cracks her window open, to let a thin strip of fresh air sweep over her face. She finds David looking at her in the side mirror when she opens her eyes, but if he disapproves he says nothing.

“I’m Derek—your new driver, ma’am,” the driver says. Northern, Julia notes. Maybe Manchester. She knew so little about Terry. She found out more about him from watching the news this morning than she ever asked about him in nearly three years. Some representative of the people she is. “I wish we were meeting under nicer circumstances, but it’s a pleasure.”

“As do I,” Julia agrees quietly. “Thank you, Derek. I appreciate that.”

“PS Budd has advised that we should take a winding route to the Home Office today, just to be on the safe side. It’ll take a lot longer than you’re used to- I hope that’s okay, ma’am.”

“Whatever PS Budd thinks is best,” Julia says. Saying his title out loud feels odd on her tongue now. “That’s fine. I’ll get some work done on the way.”

The route certainly is winding. It feels as though they pass almost entirely out of London and into the sticks before heading where they’re supposed to be going. Julia gets very little done, as it turns out.

As it turns out, it’s far too much time to spend staring at the back of his head.

It’s too much time to think. To remember. And all of it comes back to her in vivid detail, enough to make her toes curl in her shoes.

The Home Secretary in a tryst with her bodyguard: a younger man no less, and still technically married to boot. All whilst under taxpayer-funded protection in a luxury hotel suite. Now, wasn’t that a news story to cause mass apoplectic fits across the land?

Her mind’s eye constructs the scathing exposé and the resulting scandal: photographers and journalists biting at her heels for her resignation, whispers of inquiries and questions before select committees, the opposition and her own party opponents using it as a stick to beat her with. And all of them -every single one- begging to know _why._

What could she even tell them?

That it felt good to be desired by someone? In a real way- not in the way Daily Mail journos use her as wanking material on slow news days and the rare occasions she chooses to wear a skirt. And definitely not in the desperate way that Rob hung on her every word.

It had been so long. And who would really begrudge her -when push came to shove- some simple human contact in the aftermath of such traumatic events?

As long as it doesn’t happen again. Everything could be explained and eventually forgiven -understood, but not condoned-… as long as it doesn’t happen again.

“Ma’am?” Derek says. It almost startles her. “We’ve arrived.”

Julia looks outside. They’re parked outside the office. She hadn’t even noticed being in Central London again.

“Oh.” She starts gathering her things together. “Right. Thank you, Derek.”

David opens the car door. Instantly, cameras are shoved in her face and someone is demanding to know how she’s feeling in the aftermath of the attempt on her life. It had been arranged to leave the hotel for work much earlier than usual partially to avoid this exact situation, but it seems the gaggle of journalists are much more tenacious than anyone gave them credit for.

David puts his arm out in front of her, guiding her through with the help of two of the doormen from the building.

It feels like it takes years to get through them and it’s nearly enough to make her wish she’d taken the PM up on his offer of time off. He’d just about managed to make his relief that she wasn’t now a resident of St Bartholomew’s morgue sound genuine, to his credit.

The foyer isn’t much of an improvement either. Staring and whispering civil servants are virtually equivalent to a pack of baying journalists in real terms.

The length of time it takes her to realise he’s not following her to the lifts is embarrassingly short. Strange how accustomed she is to having him around, right behind her, or in her eye line at least.  It doesn’t seem like long ago she was telling him to fuck off.

It’d be a simpler situation if she still was.

“You not coming?”

“No, ma’am,” he says. He stares at something behind her left shoulder quite determinedly. “I have to meet with my CO, to debrief after yesterday. Shouldn’t take long.”

“Right.” Julia taps the tiles with the toe of her shoe. He’s waiting patiently for her to dismiss him, the way he’s been trained.

She doesn’t.

She waits. It’s a risk, to linger together like this in public—but then so was leading him to bed and letting him undress her, and it didn’t stop her then. In comparison, everything else is small fry.

Finally, _finally_ , he meets her eyes.

“Do you need anything else, ma’am?”

His Scots brogue is a low rasp, gaze steady and weighted. It’d take another sniper to make her look away.

Julia shakes her head, ever so slightly. “No,” she intones, almost lost in the background noise. “Later, then?”

“Later,” he agrees.

The muscles in his jaw flex, belying some deep, unknowable emotion that simmers constantly under the tight restraints he puts himself under. In bed, she could feel it under his skin, in every touch- completely inseparable from him. There’s a beat just looking at him, a handful of seconds where she knows without one shadow of a doubt that last night wasn’t the end of whatever it is they’ve started.

But the moment ends. He looks away and turns on his heel without a glance backward.

Julia watches him go.

As long as it doesn’t happen again. She has a press conference to prepare for.

 

 


End file.
